'Bikinis' makes for a great journey of musical memories

Saturday

Jul 13, 2013 at 5:10 PMJul 13, 2013 at 5:19 PM

By Arlene BachanovDaily Telegram Special Writer

If you’re of the baby-boomer generation, much of the soundtrack to your childhood or early adulthood consisted of all those bubble-gum tunes that were all over the AM-radio airwaves in the early to mid-1960s: songs like “It’s in His Kiss” and “Heat Wave” and “Where the Boys Are.”

Some of the greatest hits of that era, and even on through the 1970s and into the short-lived disco craze, are the framework of “The Bikinis,” now onstage at the Croswell Opera House.

As the plot of the show goes, one day in the 1960s four girls — Annie, Jodi, Karla and Barbara — competed on the spur of the moment in the Belmar Beach talent show in (what else) their bikinis, won the contest and went on to form their own group.

Time passed, musical tastes changed, and the members of The Bikinis all went on with their lives, but now they’ve reunited for a concert to help save the Sandy Shores Mobile Home Resort. And that concert, of course, is the real reason for this show. What plot there is is really pretty thin, with dialogue that seems kind of forced more often than not. But then there’s the music — all or parts of some 30 tunes of the era.

There’s a limit to what’s represented; if you’re looking for, say, music by the Beatles or other groups of that type, you won’t find it here. But the whole point is to showcase the sort of early-pop music a girl group of the time would sing — which is not to say that such groups actually did sing most of these particular tunes — and in that respect the playlist of “The Bikinis” is more than satisfying.

And it’s interesting to look at that playlist as a survey of how the music of the era changed. The bubble-gum sound gave way to the tunes of Woodstock and Vietnam protest songs, and eventually to disco, and in the conceit of this show The Bikinis sang it all over their years together. It means that the same group that starts the show with “It’s In His Kiss” ends its trip down musical Memory Lane with the rousing female-empowerment tunes “I’m Every Woman,” “It’s Raining Men” and “I Will Survive.”

Obviously, you can’t have a show like this without some exceptional singers performing this music. And the Croswell has the perfect ones in Cleon Grooms Broussard (Annie), Joyce Cameron (Jodi), Carol Vendemo-Ruff (Karla) and Stephanie Stephan (Barbara). This is an extremely strong, solid foursome of women who not only knock it out of the park musically, but have some great chemistry together besides.

Theirs is not an easy job by any means. They have to produce all those great tight harmonies these arrangements demand, and they almost never get a break; the show is right around two hours long not counting the intermission, and they sing almost the entire time with only a little dialogue in between the numbers.

But they sound absolutely terrific together, whether they’re performing the uptempo frothy stuff like “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini,” showing off some of those goofy ’60s dances like the Freddie and the Pony and the Watusi, singing that great Bobby Darin song “Simple Song of Freedom,” or just sitting together onstage doing “Midnight Blue,” which incidentally sounds just stunning the way they do it.

In short, these women’s performance together gives a person every reason to go see this show, whether one is old enough to remember the music or not.

The quartet is joined onstage by Debbie Corbin as Betty, the mobile home park’s owner, who only has a couple of actual lines but who serves a vital role as a backup singer and costume assistant, and an instrumental combo, consisting of music director David Rains on keyboard, Michael Williams on drums, Tim Prettyman on bass and Michael Bustos on guitar, that does a great job in their own right with this wide array of music.

Because the whole action of the show consists of people up onstage singing, there’s a need to give the set some visual interest, and in this respect the work done by lighting designer Tiff Crutchfield and projection designer Kelvin Roberson works nicely. Crutchfield gives the lighting the proper colorful ’60s look, while Roberson has put together a series of projections that evoke the era really well, whether it’s postcards with beach scenes or photos of Woodstock, Vietnam and anti-war protests.

If you’re old enough to remember the ’60s, “The Bikinis” is a great retro journey to take. If you’re not in that age group but just want to hear some fun music done by some really fine singers and a great instrumental combo, this show more than fits the bill there too.

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